Steven Gerrard ‘not interested’ in doubts raised over Rangers’ mentality as they look to bounce back from St Mirren defeat

Steven Gerrard will be seeking an immediate and positive reaction from his Rangers team to their shock Betfred Cup defeat at St Mirren. (Photo by Willie Vass/Pool via Getty Images)

So it proved in the aftermath of their first defeat of the season on Wednesday night in Paisley when a defensively flawed performance saw them knocked out of the Betfred Cup by St Mirren.

Rangers now find themselves faced with a strand of criticism which has become all too familiar during Gerrard’s managerial tenure - do his team have the mentality or ‘bottle’ to cope with the demands of seeing the job through at the business end of competitions?

“I’m not surprised one little bit, but I haven’t seen any of it or read any of it and I’m not interested in any of it,” was Gerrard’s blunt response when asked for his reaction to the brickbats aimed in the direction of himself and his squad after their fifth consecutive domestic cup disappointment under his guidance.

Cedric Itten scored twice in Rangers' first Premiership meeting with Motherwell this season, a 5-1 win at Fir Park in September. (Photo by Craig Williamson / SNS Group)

Gerrard knows the scrutiny Rangers are under when they return to Premiership business against Motherwell at Ibrox on Saturday afternoon will now be intensified but is confident his players can deliver the appropriate response.

Living in the Glasgow goldfish bowl

“Listen, we have ticked a lot of boxes in many areas this year,” he said. “We’ve shown consistency, we’ve shown hunger, we’ve shown a real big focus.

“We’ve gone on a stretch of results which has been very impressive and we took a lot of praise for that in many areas. People have talked about our resolve, our character, the guts we have shown for really digging in at times.

“After the result against St Mirren, it’s normal that, on the outside, there will be noise from a critical point of view. We don’t go and look for that but we are well aware that will be the case. We are in Glasgow. We know what happens if you suffer a draw or a defeat or something that bumps you along the way.

“That’s life. We’ll take it on the chin. We’ll accept it. We’ll take responsibility for it. And we will try to get back to winning ways on Saturday. It is what it is. It’s life at Glasgow Rangers.

“On Thursday, there were still a lot of disappointed players and the staff were obviously disappointed. We used Thursday to get it out of the system, really, to get back on the training pitch and start the Motherwell preparation.

“We will be watching the players really closely, individually and collectively, to see how they react.

“But knowing this group, who are a good group, I’m sure they are going to want to react in the right way and it’s extremely important we do that.

“Motherwell is a very important game with a big three points available. We are going to have to be at our best, or close to it, to win that game.”

Ten in a row?

Victory would increase Rangers’ advantage over Celtic in the title race to 16 points, having played three games more than the champions, and would also see them rack up ten consecutive wins in the top flight for the first time in 13 years.

“All we need to focus on is three points and getting back to winning ways,” added Gerrard. “Analysing the other night, we didn’t really do that much wrong in terms of our general play, in terms of our approach, in terms of trying to create. We did really well getting ourselves in front but we haven’t been good enough from a defensive point of view in three situations.

“The run we have been on in the league is fantastic. If we beat Motherwell to get ten on the spin, it’s a great run of games.

“But for me, it is about the long goal of what we can achieve as a group. Come the end of the season it’s important we are not talking about runs we went on, we need to be talking about success.

“We just need to focus on Motherwell, give the players a game plan, see who reacts the right way and who deserves to play. We go from there. If we break records or set landmarks or go on runs along the way, then great, but for me it is all about the end goal.

Pressing the reset button

“We need to reset after Wednesday and remember what has taken us on this fantastic run of results.

“That’s sticking to our identity, in and out of possession. We have to remind ourselves as a group of what has got us qualified in the Europa League top of our group, what’s got us on the this big stretch of results, what’s made us a difficult team to play against and concede a small number of goals – but that has also made us look really entertaining as a team.

“We have to reset and remind ourselves of what got us there and get back to it as quickly as possible.

“Yes, we look to the leadership group in our squad now. But we also look for them every day. Every day they have a responsibility to drive the standards, keep the culture how it is, help us as a management team, to be the connection for the whole group.

“But they are a good group. There is no ego in there. They all know that we let ourselves down on Wednesday night. We all take responsibility for that. There is no finger-pointing or blame or chucking anyone under the bus. We don’t do that here.

“It’s very much a case of ‘come on then, let’s react in the right way and get back to winning ways’ and ‘can we start again on another impressive run of fixtures that are going to help us in the long term?’.

A message from the Editor:

Thank you for reading this article. We're more reliant on your support than ever as the shift in consumer habits brought about by coronavirus impacts our advertisers.